Step By Step
by gingerline
Summary: No one has ever needed Johanna before. Not truly. It's only once someone does that Johanna realizes she's never needed anyone before, either. - slow!burn johanna/annie, post-mockingjay. canon-compliant.


**A/N: This takes place post-mockingjay, in a world where Johanna followed Annie to 4 after all the chaos. c:**

* * *

The jet of water sluices her skin, sharp as a knife.

Johanna holds her breath, teeth grit, trying to ignore the way trembles shake her legs, how her shoulders are so tense they ache. The water hits her smoothly and it takes all she has to let it, to stand there and be helpless - and the only thing keeping her upright is thought of how pathetic it is to not be able to.

It's seconds before her muscles are iron-tight, braced for agony, and Johanna forces herself to remember where she is - forces herself to look at the pink-and-flora covered shower tile and remember, _Johanna, you are not in the Capitol_.

She's heard it a thousand times - from her therapist; from herself - but it never helped then, and doesn't help now. The pink blurs around her and she knows it's only water but suddenly her heart is racing, blood thundering through her veins.

 _Water rushes through the vent, clear and cold, splashing onto the floor and she's frozen, chained to the steel until -_

The next thing she knows, she's crashing against the wall and waves of pain overtake her, hazy and pounding. Johanna doesn't cry out, doesn't make a sound - she never makes a _sound_ \- and it's only when she coughs, bile splattering onto the slick tile that she realizes her legs gave out beneath her.

Her side burns, her shoulder burns, and her muscles are screaming and all she knows is there's water everywhere - she soaked - she needs to-

"J-Johanna?"

Her heart thunders in her ears, panic running its claws up her spine. Johanna's hair is dripping, it's cold and unforgiving against her skin, just before the burn -

There's a creak and a loud thump - a door - and her heart spikes, terror thrumming in her veins. No, no, no-

 _\- the Peacekeeper raises the wires, sparks dancing like little arcs of lightning across the ends, rubber boots shimmering in the spotted lighting -_

"O-Oh my gosh, Johanna - are you -"

The water shuts off, quieting the roar to dead silence.

Johanna can't breath, and agony tears through her side like knives, and they're going to - but she won't speak, won't say a _fuckin'_ _word_ -

A hand brushes her shoulder, feather light - Johanna's not fooled - and she snaps, thrashing but she slips and there's no satisfying contact, no retaliatory blaze of pain. The world is a blur and she's dripping water onto cold tile -

"J-Johanna, please! It's - it's just me!"

Her eyes snap left to see a blur of rust-red and green - bright colors, not gray or yellow or steel - and she can't understand it, but something within Johanna does; it's as if the life is sucked from her body.

She collapses against the tile, in the pool of pinkish water.

She takes in shallow, erratic breaths, heart pounding in her chest, and then there are hands on her shoulders. Johanna flinches, but they're warm and gentle, and she doesn't have energy to thrust them away.

She feels hot - unbearably hot - before she feels herself slip, and then she feels nothing at all.

* * *

When Johanna comes to herself, it's with a start. Her eyes snap open and suddenly she sees an auburn-haired girl, sitting across from her in nothing but a thin gown. She's very pale, with misty eyes and knees held against her chest - as if the world is constantly being pulled from beneath her - and there's only one person that could be.

Johanna's heart clenches.

 _"J-Johanna? Where... where are we?"_

 _"...Don't ask me that, crazy. The Capitol, underground, a prison - it doesn't really matter, does it? We're fucked either way."_

Cresta.

Her whole body aches, but not badly - the Peacekeepers must not have really shocked her, this time - but Cresta...

The girl's staring off, unfocused, and for a second Johanna thinks they've pushed her in one of her catatonic spells until their eyes meet. Hers are crystal clear as they widen slightly, in surprise.

"Sorry..." A sheepish look overtakes Cresta's face, creasing her features. "I couldn't carry you out."

Cresta raises her arm shakily - her right one, the one that's been weak ever since the delivery. Since the -

Since the baby. Finnick's baby.

Finnick's death.

13.

Snow.

After the Capitol - after...

Johanna is suddenly aware of the pink tile around them, dotted with flora - Cresta's tile. She sees the girl's pale silk nightgown - maternity nightgown - not the stiff cotton of prison uniforms. She feels softness against her wet skin, looks down and finds a bathrobe, hastily pulled around her naked form; feels the cool of the shower wall pressed against her back.

She sees the bathroom's open window; the shimmering expanse of Four's night sky.

 _Johanna, you are not in the Capitol._

She remembers the shower, the water, then...

Relief melts through her, hot and heavy.

"J-Johanna?"

A sob racks her frame, then another. They're ugly and heavy, betraying weakness above anything else, but she can't stop them. Cresta's in front of her, sea-foam eyes wide with concern, before she isn't, but Johanna doesn't care. Her chest is too tight, too weak.

Johanna thought she was stronger than this - thought that maybe, after all this time - but she can't escape it. She can't.

A pale blur comes to Johanna's left and sits, brushing her hand, sliding their shoulders together - touching her lightly and no more, because Johanna can't take more, and Cresta seems to know this. Johanna doesn't look at her - can't look at her, can't look at anyone - but she grasps for the hand, feels the warmth of the shoulder and holds on tightly.

It's gentle, simple contact. Warm.

They never touched her if not to beat her, and Cresta's touch - who is nothing but gentle, and simple, and accepting - calms Johanna, grounds her.

When her heart slows and her lungs fill enough to breath, she lets out a long exhale. Cresta is staring at her with those glossy emerald eyes, brimming with sympathy, but for once, Johanna doesn't have the energy to be sick. She just slumps, head falling away.

She avoids the girl's gaze, and when Johanna lets her hand go Cresta just rises without a word.

Cresta shakes as she kneels, handing Johanna a fluffy towel. She snatches it, drying off her face, but she's surprised when Cresta stands there as she does so, staring at her, expression soft. "It... It will get better, Johanna."

Johanna thought she'd run dry of it, but inexplicably, a flash of anger shoots through her.

Thinks of lying there in the hospital bed, flashbacks teetering at the edge of her mind, and her therapist - looking down on her - telling her _it will get easier, Johanna._

Johanna flings the towel, hard and fast. "Don't talk to me about 'better', Cresta!"

The wet smack as it hits the opposite wall isn't satisfying, but Cresta flinches, and for some reason that is, and that makes her sick. "Fuck."

She likes it - the fear - and wants it to be Snow there, flinching from her. Wants to see the terror on his face as she shoves him against his own prison floor, bashes his fucking head in -

Cresta calmly crosses the room and picks up the towel.

"Maybe not, but it will," she insists quietly, softly, while she closes the window, as if afraid their neighbors will wake and complain about Johanna's late-night racket. Again.

Duplexes. The walls are too fucking thin here, just like in -

Her fists clench. Johanna's body aches and it kills her to wrench herself to her feet, muscles screaming, but she can't stand it anymore. She nearly slips on the slick tile, nearly falls - but when Cresta reaches to steady her, a viscous glare stops her short.

Still calmly, Cresta hands her a fresh towel. Anger boils over the little stab of guilt.

Johanna's still trembling as she hastily throws the wet robe from herself, scrubbing the residual dampness from her body, itching across her skin like thousands of tiny ants.

Her body is covered in scars now, dark and gruesome, she sees how Cresta averts her eyes now, remembers how the girl covered her with a robe. The girl clearly wants to leave - standing tensely near the door, eyes averted - as if she does, Johanna will hurt herself -

"Are you still here?" she snaps. It's viscous, and curt, but the pity there is damning, and suffocating, and fuck, Johanna's not her darling blond pity-project -

Respectfully, Cresta moves to leave - doesn't contest the rudeness, or how Johanna never thanked her and never does - and that's what digs in Johanna the most, has the knife of guilt in her heart twist. Johanna curses herself.

She's such a mess.

"Will..." Cresta begins at last moment, as she's about to close the door, eyes glossy. "...w-will you come to dinner?"

Her green eyes flicker to the empty shower, and back, nervously. Johanna knows what she's asking. _"You won't... try anything else, will you?"_

"Are you my mother?" But Cresta doesn't move, staring at her. It's two in the fucking morning, but the girl looks suddenly very fragile, and it's making her uncomfortable, and - "...Fine, I'll be there. Just go!"

The door clicks shut. Humidity lingers uncomfortably on her skin, scrubbed dry and raw.

Johanna's head falls against the wall, chest burning. Finnick's words echo through her mind once again, resounding.

 _She has no one else, Jo._

Her chuckle is dark. "Looks like we're both fucked, then."


End file.
